Inaugurating the meeting, Chairman of the Interim Election Council (IEC), Khil Raj Regmi, said that all the SAARC countries should work with unity to combat the existing poverty in the region.[break]
Chairman Regmi said the SAARC countries have a lot of things to do to meet the demands and desires of the people in this region, adding that it is not impossible to achieve the goal of alleviating poverty if there was political willpower.
Corruption and financial irregularities were the challenges and that poverty and backwardness were not uprooted from the SAARC countries for lack of concrete economic development policies, he said.
Quoting the famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi that ´Poverty is the ugliest picture of violence´, Chairman Regmi said it has been mandatory to implement the poor-oriented programmes in an extensive and coordinative manner.
IEC Chairman Regmi said political stability and public participation were the pre-conditions to alleviate poverty and made it clear that Nepal has given priority to uplifting the backward classes by establishing Poverty Alleviation Fund from the state level.
Similarly, Minister for Federal Affairs, Local Development, and Health and Population, Bidyadhar Mallik, presented comparative results of the past and
recent days and said though the country had 30 per cent of people under the poverty line in 2003, it came down to 25 per cent by the end of 2011. He added that the government has been working to palliate poverty in the rural areas.
Secretary General of SAARC Ahmed Saleem stressed the need of bringing strategic programmes to raise the life standards of around 600 million people in South Asia, adding that the SAARC countries need to pay special attention for inclusive economic growth.
The meeting would hold discussions on preparing documents regarding poverty, and regional and sub-regional investment projects. It would discuss on food security and nutrition, and collecting fund to establish handicraft villages, among others.
Ministers of all the eight SAARC countries and their representatives are attending the meeting.
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